Shelf Life Guide

At Midwest Laboratories, we perform a lot of shelf life testing for clients across the company. The shelf life of an item indicates how long a particular product will last in its current state without decomposition. Today, I came across a great guide on the internet which keeps track of different food items, StillTasty. StillTasty.com has an extensive list of food categories: fruits, vegetables, dairy, meat, grains, condiments, fish, snacks, nuts, spices, baked goods and beverages. On this site, you can search for particular food items or browse by the list of categories.

I really like how the food items are broken down by fresh, commercial, frozen, cooked, canned, raw and others. In each case, you will be able to know how long you can keep a particular item.

The iphone app is really cool. For $1.99 you can browse items as stated above and receive quick answers. In addition, you can log items in with respect to their shelf life and the application will track when you started saving a particular item and it will alert you as to its expiration. A very hand app in managing your current food inventory. There is also functionality to create a grocery list and email that list of items to yourself or others.

The application, StilTasty is really cool and a great resource for managing your food inventory. Check it out today!

If you have questions regarding shelf life, call Sue Ann or Erin at Midwest Laboratories or check out our shelflifetesting.com site. Check out the shelf life chamber and get a first-hand glimpse of our shelf life testing process.